The Unions vs. Obamacare

Weeklystandard ^ | 3-17-13 | Mark Hemingway

[Dysart]

"I heard [Obama] say, ‘If you like your health plan, you can keep it,’ ” John Wilhelm, chairman of Unite Here Health, representing 260,000 union workers, recently told the Wall Street Journal. “If I’m wrong, and the president does not intend to keep his word, I would have severe second thoughts about the law.” Besides Wilhelm, some of the nation’s largest union bosses have taken to publicly criticizing the Affordable Care Act.

Of course, keeping your health care plan, like many Obama-care promises, has turned out to be demonstrably untrue. According to the Congressional Budget Office, about 7 million Americans stand to lose insurance coverage through the law by 2022. But unlike most private-sector workers expected to lose their current health coverage, union workers were a powerful Democratic constituency granted specific exemptions from Obama-care.

Labor leaders are just now realizing that those protections are fleeting, and Obama-care regulations and cost increases will fall on the politically connected and unconnected alike.

The Obama administration has thus far issued waivers from Obama-care’s onerous requirements to unions representing 543,812 workers. By contrast, the administration has issued waivers for only 69,813 nonunion workers. While these waivers are a significant benefit, they accrue to a small fraction of the nation’s 14 million union workers. Further, many of the waivers have been granted on an annual basis, and no waiver has been granted for longer than two-and-a-half years. Eventually even union health plans are going to have to comply with Obama-care regulations.

[headstamp 2]

Could these waivers spark a lawsuit on the grounds of the equal protection clause?

[Dysart]

Equal Protection Clause of 14th Amendment:

Portion of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that prohibits discrimination by state government institutions. The clause grants all people "equal protection of the laws," which means that the states must apply the law equally and cannot give preference to one person or class of persons over another.

Why not? SC's grooss error notwithstanding, there is no Constitutional basis for forcing the people to purchase anything. We know that.

[Steely Tom]

Silly.

What Obama meant was "If you like your health plan, and if you still like it after it doubles or triples in price due to preexisting conditions language it will have to operate under after Obama care is passed, you can keep it."

It's one of those "meaning of the word 'is'" dealies we've all become so used to under our left-wing Democrat politicians.

[lowbridge]

I heard [Obama] say, ‘If you like your health plan, you can keep it,’ ” John Wilhelm, chairman of Unite Here Health, representing 260,000 union workers, recently told the Wall Street Journal

There was your first mistake. Listening to anything Obama has to say. Worse, believing it.

[Pilgrim's Progress]

As the unions are now receiving a royal whupping from conservative states, such as Wisconsin, they are starting to sing a different tune.

Union bosses are slowly realizing that the days when unions could intimidate governments are coming to an end. As others see that states that broke union dominance were correct, they will follow suit.

Now all of a sudden unions need to start sounding like they really care for the rank and file.

[alice_in_bubbaland]

These fools screwed the entire country. They worked day and night to re-elect a lying sack of Marxist crap.

[Steely Tom]

As the unions are now receiving a royal whupping from conservative states, such as Wisconsin, they are starting to sing a different tune.

Wisconsin is not a "conservative state." That's what made the Scott Walker victory there so remarkable.

[only1percent]

The public employee unions are much less popular than Obama. Even when Walker was winning exit polls showed a significant number of ticket splitters - people who voted for Walker but who intended to vote for Obama six months later. Conservatives scoffed but it turned out to predict the result perfectly well, not unlike the vote in Michigan (reelect Obama but don’t write union goldbricking into the State Constitution).

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Dysart.

The only reason unions would or will object to Zerocare is to have something to blame on Republicans in 2014 and 2016 — “Zero could have got this or that for us, but the Republicans stood in the way.”

[Mike Darancette]

“If I’m wrong, and the president does not intend to keep his word, I would have severe second thoughts about the law.”

Too late ass clown.

[boop]

I don't want to hear these union cretins saying boo about Obamacare. They supported it (And Obama) to the hilt.

I'd laugh at them for being stupid, but what unions did by getting Obama into office hurts a lot more people than just unionistas.